Solar & Wind Pulse (New & Improved!)

Assess community sentiment towards solar and wind projects in seconds.

Overview

Solar and Wind Pulse are AI-driven tools built on a vast proprietary dataset to simplify discovery of public opinion toward renewables development in your AOI. By utilizing sentiment scores and data from Solar and Wind Pulse, developers can trim hours off their due diligence, avoid costly site selection mistakes, and craft stronger community engagement strategies for their projects.

In this article, we'll review:

• Key Features of Solar and Wind Pulse
• How to View Solar and Wind Pulse in the Map 
• How to View Solar and Wind Pulse in a Report
• Frequently Asked Questions

Key Features of Solar and Wind Pulse

• Interactive Heatmap: Visualize county-by-county sentiment towards solar or wind development; pinpoint operating, planned, and canceled or postponed project locations; and quickly identify jurisdictions with moratoriums.
• AI-Driven Sentiment Analysis:  Access in-depth analysis of thousands of news articles to understand local sentiment towards renewables development.
• Vast Regulations Database: Review hundreds of solar and wind moratoriums and ordinances with concise summaries and optional Expert Verifications.
• Stakeholder Insights: Gain valuable insights into local stakeholders influencing public sentiment and their primary reasons for opposition (if any).

Viewing Solar and Wind Pulse in the Map 

Within the Map, click the corresponding checkbox next to a layer to enable or disable it individually.

Solar and Wind Pulse each include 3 map layers: 

• Heatmap: Identifies counties with positive, negative, or mixed sentiment.
  
  • Solar Pulse:
    
  • Wind Pulse:
    
  • Counties with an “unsure” label/coloring are those for which we currently lack data, either because there’s been zero solar or wind development activity in these counties, or the relevant data is not yet digitally available. If you come across any counties during your own due diligence where we’re missing data, please tell us via the in-app feedback mechanism by giving us a thumbs-down with a note providing the data that you found, where you found it, and a relevant link. This is key to helping accelerate the improvement process of the Pulse tools.
• Farms: Locates operating (green), planned (blue), and canceled or postponed (red) solar and wind projects.
  • Solar Pulse:
    
    
  • Wind Pulse:
    
    
• Moratoriums: Pinpoints jurisdictions with likely solar or wind development restrictions.
  • Solar Pulse:
    
  • Wind Pulse:

Pop-Up Modal

Within the Heatmap, you can click on any county to see the underlying data driving the county’s Solar or Wind Pulse score.

• Solar Pulse:
• Wind Pulse:

“Your Site Selection” Side Modal

After creating a project area in the map, you’ll be able to see your AOI’s Solar or Wind Pulse scores and sub-scores within the side modal.

Solar and Wind Pulse Views in Reports 

Executive Summary

Regulations

On this report sub-page, you’ll find a list of any moratoriums or ordinances we were able to find for the county(s) where your AOI is located. You’ll also see summaries of these regulations, links to the source docs, and an option for “Expert Verifications” of moratoriums, for no added fee.

• Solar Pulse:
• Wind Pulse:

Solar Velocity / Wind Activity

This report sub-page provides a list of projects within the county(s) where your AOI is located, in various stages of development, including operating, planned, and canceled or postponed. The data for both Solar Velocity and Wind Activity is sourced directly from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), with updates occurring on a monthly basis. You can sort or filter the projects by a few key data fields, like Nameplate Capacity, Planned Operation Year, etc.

• Solar Pulse:
  
  
• Wind Activity:

Solar Velocity and Wind Activity also include data for projects that have directly experienced significant opposition at the local or state level. Click the Contested Projects tab to see these projects, and then click the View button under “Description” to see a summary of what happened, along with links to relevant sources.

AI Sentiment

Within this report sub-page, the Summary tab highlights the aggregated sentiment score(s) within the county(s) where your AOI is located, with a list of the news articles and their individual sentiment scores, sources, brief summaries, score reasoning, and links to the articles themselves. The Stakeholders and Opposition Points tabs provide valuable insights about the local stakeholders influencing public sentiment and any available opposition reasons.

• Solar Pulse:
• Wind Pulse:

Frequently Asked Questions

• Where does your AI Solar / Wind Sentiment (news article) data and analysis come from?
  We’ve built a proprietary data collection and analysis process to specifically target news articles that mention solar or wind energy development.
• Where does your Solar Velocity / Wind Activity (solar / wind projects) data come from?
  We’re pulling this data directly from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), with updates occurring on a monthly basis. Our contested project data comes from our friends at the Sabin Center via their June 2024 report.
• How does your “Under Development” project data differ from the rest of the Solar Velocity data?
  *(only relevant to Solar Pulse; not Wind Pulse)
  While EIA project data is generally regarded as the most accurate and comprehensive dataset available for operating solar projects, it only has about 1,000 projects nationwide in the “planned” stage (as of Dec 2024). To provide a more comprehensive view of projects still under development, we’re supplementing EIA data in Solar Velocity with data on over 12,000 projects that were “under development,” according to a data provider called Ohm Analytics, as of July 2024. This data may have some inaccuracies, so it isn’t factored into Solar Pulse scores, nor are these projects represented on the map.
  Projects in this "Under Development" stage have generally either applied for interconnection, had a zoning hearing, are still in the construction phase, and/or have yet to generate electricity.
• Where does your Solar / Wind Regulations (moratoriums and ordinances) data come from?
  We’ve built a proprietary data collection and analysis process.
• How often do you refresh your Solar and Wind Pulse data?
  We refresh our AI Solar / Wind Sentiment data weekly, Solar Velocity / Wind Activity data monthly, and Solar / Wind Regulations data monthly.
• How are you calculating a given county’s overall Solar / Wind Pulse score?
  We’ve built a proprietary algorithm based on the three sub-scores listed below. Each has a different weighting to create an aggregated Pulse score for every county in the U.S. If there is no data for news, projects, or regulations in a given county, then the aggregated score will be “Unsure.”
• How are you calculating a given county’s AI Solar / Wind Sentiment score?
  We analyze individual news articles to determine how the content and tone seem to be toward solar or wind development, ultimately leading to a positive or negative score. The articles written most recently are assigned a greater weight. Next, all news articles’ scores for a given county are combined to gauge the overall implied sentiment toward solar or wind development, which determines the AI Solar / Wind Sentiment score. If there is no data for solar / wind news in a given county, then the AI Solar / Wind Sentiment score will be “Unsure.”
• How are you calculating a given county’s Solar Velocity / Wind Activity score?
  Counties with operating and/or planned projects, but no contested projects, will receive a positive Solar Velocity / Wind Activity score. The score is weighted higher (more positive) for counties with recently operational projects. Counties with only contested projects (no operating or planned projects) will have a negative score, and scores for counties with both operating / planned and contested projects will depend upon the relative counts of projects in these categories.
• How are you calculating a given county’s Solar / Wind Regulations score?
  If there’s at least 1 moratorium (regardless of the presence/number of ordinances), then the Solar / Wind Regulations score will be “Negative.” If there’s at least 1 ordinance but no moratoriums, then the Solar / Wind Regulations score will be “Positive."
  NOTE: Some ordinances can be negative for solar or wind development, though this generally depends on the details and/or location of a project. When all things are equal between two counties re: solar or wind sentiment but one county has an ordinance and the other doesn’t, we assume that the county with the ordinance would be a safer bet for new development, as they’ve started thinking about how they’ll manage solar or wind development in their county (whereas the other county is more of a wildcard and may enact a moratorium while they wrap their heads around renewables).
  If there are zero ordinances or moratoriums, then the Solar / Wind Regulations score will be “Unsure."
• Do you have any data about when developers took leases for their projects?
  No, we currently don't track when developers took leases for their projects.
• How can I share Solar or Wind Pulse information with my team?
  Solar or Wind Pulse information can be shared with your team by sharing the report via magic link. Users will be able to review and interact with a read-only version of the Executive Summary and Solar or Wind Pulse data, including Solar / Wind Regulations, Solar Velocity / Wind Activity, and AI Solar / Wind Sentiment.
• How are you defining the opposition points within AI Solar / Wind Sentiment?
  

  Reason	Description
  Other	Opposition for reasons not listed below, often specific to individual circumstances or broader concerns.
  Lack of Community Input	Lack of meaningful consultation or involvement of the local community in the decision-making process.
  Failure to Respect Tribal Rights	Objections due to the potential infringement on indigenous land rights and lack of consultation with Tribal authorities.
  Land Value Impacts	Concerns that the project will decrease property values in the surrounding areas.
  Health and Safety	Concerns about health risks associated with the project, including radiation from solar panels or accidents during construction.
  Mistrust of Corporations	Distrust towards the associated organization, including their motives and transparency.
  Aesthetic Concerns	Concerns that the project will be visually unappealing, especially with long stretches of chain-linked fence.
  Construction Impacts	Objections due to noise, pollution, and dust from construction vehicles.
  Loss of Agriculture	Concerns about changing the community’s farming character.
  Environmental Concerns	Potential negative impact on local ecosystems, wildlife, and natural habitats.

• How are you defining the stakeholder types within AI Solar / Wind Sentiment?
  

  Name	Description
  Business	A registered business entity involved in the project.
  Influencer	A third party engaged by Developers or Groups to influence the community's perspective on the project, such as a researcher from a local university speaking at a town hall on the merits of solar projects.
  Group	A for-profit, non-profit, or other organized entity that holds an opinion, favorable or not, about the proposed project. This may include organizations such as an Alliance, Institute, or Association.
  Citizen	A resident or non-resident, other than the Landowner, who resides in the town, city, municipality, or county and holds an opinion, favorable or not, about the proposed project.
  Landowner	An owner of the land where the proposed project would be constructed.
  Official	An elected or appointed government representative at a town, city, municipality, or county level, such as a Mayor, or a Member of a Board, Commission, or City Council.
  Community Affairs	A person responsible for Community Affairs, Community Relations, or similar issues, whether employed directly by a project development company or contracted as a consultant.
  Developer	Any individual working at a project development company (e.g., a solar developer).

• How can I share my feedback or ideas for improving Solar and Wind Pulse?
  Your feedback is important in helping us enhance Solar and Wind Pulse's value in your development efforts. Please use the in-app feedback tool (screenshot below) to provide positive and negative feedback on the helpful features and data and where there’s room for improvement (e.g., missing news articles with links). For general feedback or to help us prioritize which features to build next, please contact your Transect Customer Success Manager, who can set up a time for you to speak with our Product Team.